Lorde enlisted a group of "hot ladies" to "shoot [her] up" with a vitamin drip after she contracted flu ahead of her MTV Video Music Awards performance last month.

Lorde enlisted a group of "hot ladies" to "shoot [her] up" with a vitamin drip for her MTV Video Music Awards performance.

Lorde at the MTV VMAs

The 20-year-old singer came down with the flu ahead of her appearance at the ceremony at the Forum in Los Angeles last month and she revealed the "drip doctors" administered her a custom cocktail of many vitamins, including different types of B and C, and lots of electrolytes, and joked the treatment was like the "start of a porno".

Speaking on Marc Maron's 'WTF' podcast, she explained: "I had those ladies come, those hot ladies. The drip doctors. You can just pay these ladies $200 and they will come and shoot you up with this cocktail. It could be for a hangover, could be a semi-professional sports person

"It's like the start of a porno. They're in their little uniforms, so cute. You could not find that in New Zealand. They wouldn't do that."

Lorde had been scheduled to sing her latest single, 'Homemade Dynamite' at the awards show, but because of her illness, opted for an interpretive dance instead.

And she has now admitted she experienced a huge backlash from people who were "angry" about her alternative performance, which she couldn't understand because she did something so personal.

She said: "People got so angry about me performing at the VMAs. I just danced. And I danced with full f***ing joy.

"Some people were like 'we get it' but others were like 'this is offensive that I have to watch this.'

"It's so private seeing someone experience such joy."

The 'Royals' singer revealed after the VMAs that she'd been under the weather and needed the drip just to be able to attend.

She tweeted: "you can't tell in these pictures but i have the flu so bad i needed an IV #showgoeson #cutelilproppedupcorpse (sic)"